A-League: Melbourne City coach Van 't Schip urges more patience

Chris Pike

Melbourne City coach John van 't Schip says his team must show more patience to take better advantage of their attacking weapons.

Socceroos midfielder Aaron Mooy again put on a clinic for City on Saturday night but they could not take advantage in a 2-2 draw against Perth Glory that saw them miss a chance of returning to second spot.

Thanks mate: Erik Paartalu celebrates his goal against Perth, but City had to settle for a draw. Photo: Daniel Carson/Getty Images

Mooy set up a goal for Erik Paartalu and scored himself. But it could have been more, according to van 't Schip, if his team had been more patient to give Mooy a chance to set up better with Harry Novillo and Bruno Fornaroli.

"We could have been more dangerous if we went with more numbers around Aaron, Bruno and Harry," van 't Schip said. "Especially in the second half there were moments when we weren't in position yet and our wing backs weren't high enough. Aaron, Harry and Bruno were up against five or six Perth players. We should have played more patient in the build-up to get more players around them first."

Despite the result City are still well placed to make a run at the premiership with a week to fine-tune things before hosting Wellington Phoenix next Monday.

"It's a good time to maybe get some players some rest or fitter, or back from an injury," van 't Schip said. "It's a good period to see what's going to happen and it's also the January window so other players might be coming in. That's all important in the lead-up to our game against Wellington."

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Perth came back twice to level the scores through Diego Castro on the stroke of half-time and 100-gamer Chris Harold in the 60th minute. The hosts then held on for the last 30 minutes after going down to 10 men following Jacob Collard's second yellow card.

City remain fourth, two points behind Western Sydney and Sydney FC. Glory climbed to eighth but are still seven points out of the top six.

After a largely uneventful first half-hour, a Mooy free-kick led to City's opening goal. His cross found Paartalu unmarked deep in the box and he got a toe to it to score.

Just before half-time Castro was fouled by Paartalu and he delivered a corker of a free-kick, over the wall into the top left corner, to level scores at the break. It took less than two minutes after the restart for Mooy to make his mark again as he scored for the seventh time this season. Glory responded again through Harold who scored when he picked up the scraps from a saved shot from striker Andy Keogh.

Perth went down a man but even Mooy couldn't find a winner as City missed a chance of three points.

Meanwhile, the departures are continuing for Glory, with the club confirming Antony Golec will leave this week and Michael Thwaite is likely to join him. Last week, Perth said goodbye to international pair Sidnei Sciola and Guyon Fernandez, with former Republic of Ireland striker Keogh returning during the January transfer window.